


Flowers in winter

by acrosspontneuf (FangedAngel)



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-24 19:14:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22123036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FangedAngel/pseuds/acrosspontneuf
Summary: A wintery moment for the spikey/grumpy otp.
Relationships: Adan/Lysette (Dragon Age)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 8
Collections: Holiday at the Retreat





	Flowers in winter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tanaleth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tanaleth/gifts).



> Please forgive my utter freestyling of timelines/locations/characterisation/bird species. Thank you for giving me the gift of reading about the adventures of these two, and thank you for being as amazing as you are <3

Adan wakes to an absence in his bed that he is not familiar with anymore. The cottage is warm, but the first rays of sunlight reaching through the curtains carry the frost of wintertime. With each passing year, it seems that he increasingly feels the ache of the cold in his bones. He doesn't dwell too much about it, but he feels decidedly unimpressed with the morning as his knees creak in protest when he rises.

There is hot tea in the kitchen, a half-empty cup bearing the memory of her lips on the table. His own cup is waiting next to it, and Adan can't comment much on the obscene domesticity of having favourite cups when it always makes a smile almost reveal itself in the corners of his mouth.

He feels slightly less decrepit once the tea warms him up, so he follows Lysette outside, where winter reigns over the Hinterlands. From the top of the hill where their cottage rests, Adan can see the Grand Villa looming overhead and the rest is just forest and snow. Satinalia has come and gone, but the workers restoring the Villa are going to be away with their families for a few more days. The silence is only occasionally broken by a passing blue jay or robin, and now by Adan shutting the door with a resolute pull because the damned thing always sticks. The sound rings across the forest, and the air rushing from his lungs in a huff turns instantly into mist when it meets the chill in the air. Powdery snow clings to everything, from the herbs in the garden to the empty branches all around. The sunlight gives the whiteness a pink hue, and if Adan were at all inclined to romantic language he’d admit that it seems like the perfect setting for poetry.

As it is, he focuses on using his vantage point to look for movement and soon finds it. Lysette is making her way up the hill from the side not facing the fortress carrying a bundle of embrium. The sight makes the traitorous corners of his mouth twitch upwards, a reply to the smile she’s throwing at him with lethal aim. She’s wearing a lot of mismatched layers, one of which is his jumper, the one he spent five minutes looking for upon waking. The sight of her out of armour still both thrills and scares him.

‘You’re going to get mauled to death by something, woman,’ he says, just to hear her laugh, and when she does it carries through the forest like birdsong.

When Adan reaches her, he takes her hands in his and kisses warmth into them because she keeps refusing to wear gloves. Her dark hair is loose and messy in that way only he is allowed to bear witness to, that way that makes his heart race. There must be a foolish expression on his face that makes his feelings apparent because she kisses his forehead and takes pity on him.

‘And what exactly is waiting to maul me, husband?’ she says, her voice lilting like it always does when she calls him that.

She walks by him, back to the house, and he is still too distracted by her, like he always is, so he settles on grumbling something she doesn’t stop to have clarified. He follows the scent of the embrium back inside the cottage, watches as she lays her bundle on the kitchen table.

‘These were missing from the garden, weren’t they?’ she asks, the frozen ground covering the embrium roots falling between their tea cups. She looks so content and so well-rested, her cheeks flushed red from her walk, her eyes bright, and he kisses the chill from her lips.

‘They’ll grow well here,’ he says, like he even needed to reply, brushing snow away from her hair.

Adan won’t say it, but he wishes he could understand the alchemy of peaceful moments like these, wishes he could preserve them in a bottle. He could take them off the shelf and use them on his rough days, on her sleepless nights. The perfect antidote continues to resist him, so for now he clings to what he has, what he never thought he’d have. With a barely-guilty glance at his notes on the desk, Adan proceeds to reclaim his jumper from Lysette until they are both laughing too hardto breathe. The scent of the flowers fills the room, and Adan won’t tell Lysette that the scent of her hair is even more beautiful to him, but she knows anyway.

Outside, winter continues its song.


End file.
